Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

Does the Taoiseach accept that nobody on this side of the House is questioning the professionalism or competence of State counsel, who contested the case in the High Court and the Supreme Court? That is not the issue, the issue is the chaos that ensued from the lack of foreknowledge on the part of the Government, including the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, and the Attorney General. The Taoiseach is responsible for the appointment of the Attorney General and for answering for the Attorney General in this House.

The Taoiseach implies that some officer in his office is responsible for the chaos that ensued last week in his absence. I ask the Taoiseach about the absence of personal knowledge on the part of the Attorney General. Is it not the case that the rules of the superior courts require the Attorney General to be notified of any constitutional challenge, such as is at issue in this case? I quote a standard authority in respect of order 60 of the rules of the superior court.

Order 60, rule 1 provides that where any question as to the validity of any law having regard to the Constitution arises in any action, notice must be served on the Attorney General by the party having carriage of the proceedings if the former is not already a party. It was held by Carroll J in State (D. & D.) v Groarke that Order 60, rule 1 required that the Attorney General be notified if a question as to the validity of any law was to be considered, including statutes enacted prior to the coming into force of the Constitution of Ireland 1937. She stated that she could not accept that Order 60 should be interpreted so that it would be possible for a pre-Constitution statute to be declared unconstitutional in an action between two private parties without the knowledge of the Attorney General. Carroll J therefore declined to consider any of the issues directed to the constitutionality of the Children Act 1908 on the basis that no notice had been served on the Attorney General as required by Order 60, rule 1.

It seems crystal clear from this that, under the rules of the superior courts, the Attorney General would have to be notified unless he were a party. The Taoiseach can confirm whether he was a party and whether he was the respondent in this case. Either way, knowledge had to be in his possession. If not, the breakdown is far more serious than the Taoiseach is implying.

Does the Taoiseach accept, in light of his saying the Government acted responsibly and competently last week, that he must inhabit a parallel universe? The chaos that ensued from the inability of the Government to anticipate an adverse finding resulted in a laid-back Cabinet, complacent in the belief that there was no gaping hole and that no prisoner would walk free. The Taoiseach was willing to leave the country and put the Cabinet into recess for ten days. Why did he have to leave the country? Even if he had been afraid to let the Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Deputy Conor Lenihan, out on his own, he could have got some other Minister to deputise for him.

In the Taoiseach's absence, complacency degenerated into panic and there was a divided Cabinet, rent asunder, jettisoning the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform on the altar of his own self-righteousness. The Taoiseach's deputy leader took over and brutally drove through legislation that he knew, and which the Cabinet must have known, was defective, anomalous and subject to constitutional challenge. It criminalised young boys engaged in consensual sexual activity. The Taoiseach knew all this and absolute chaos reigned in the House. A panic-stricken Government in crisis offered any solution to get it past the weekend.

The Taoiseach said in respect of the investigation that is to be undertaken: "Let it come out on its own". It will not come out on its own, as the Taoiseach knows.

Regardless of his or her eminence, it is not acceptable to appoint a serving civil servant on behalf of the Government to establish what went so seriously wrong in a case of this gravity. When the Taoiseach quotes what happened in 1994, I remind him that however serious that matter was, it concerned a single file relating to the Duggan case. That which we are discussing concerned tens of thousands of our children. As regards the case relating to the Duggan file, the inquiry was chaired by a Member of the Opposition and Ministers were required to appear in public and give evidence. The Taoiseach wants to shut this down by putting in place a serving civil servant to examine what is wrong. That is not acceptable. If he thinks he can sweep matters under the carpet on that basis and refer what he terms "the wider issues" to an all-party committee, that simply is not good enough.

I heard the Taoiseach read out what I read in the Irish Independent this morning, point by point, in Brian Dowling's story. Some of it, of course, is not new at all and will have no impact on this situation. Requiring the Attorney General to sign off on constitutional proceedings is already established practice. There is no change. I want to ask the Taoiseach about one reference that has been made in the course of news reportage over the day, to which he did not refer. I refer to the commitment, apparently, reported on "News at One" that he will set up an expert group. I want to ask him about that expert group, its remit and whether he knows who will serve on it. I want to ask him about its relationship to the all-party committee that he believes he can take for granted. Will the expert group report to the all-party committee, the Attorney General, the Taoiseach or the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform?

If the Taoiseach expects to put in place an expert group that will deal with what he calls the wider issues and the social morass, and which will report not to the all-party committee but to a Minister or to himself, then the all-party committee is nothing more than a fig leaf. We need to clarify whether the expert group will report to the all-party committee.

I do not believe that the Taoiseach has dealt with the questions put to him. He thinks there are 20 cases involved. The Supreme Court decision last Friday, as he correctly said, was a relief to us all, although some of us await the detailed judgment with more than usual curiosity. In the current circumstances, is he saying that the only investigation he proposes is to appoint a serving official from the Department of Finance? That is not acceptable. At a minimum, the previous example of three, or if that cannot be agreed on, then one person such as the former Ombudsman, Mr. Kevin Murphy, for example — somebody who is not a serving official — might be put in place to examine what has been a very serious deterioration of reporting arrangements within the Office of the Attorney General.

What would be the remit of the all-party committee? Is it proposed that it would merely examine the statute passed last Friday. I know of no precedent in our history since independence where a Government enacted a statute one week and set up an all-party committee the following week to examine it. What are the all-party committee's proposed terms of reference? Will it examine last week's statute or how much wider will be its role? How many statutes will be considered during its examination? For example, can it take as its starting point the Green Paper on sexual offences published in 1998?

We know the terms of reference, approximately, because we need to make haste slowly on these wider issues. We continually asked for a stage one approach to be taken since this crisis broke. However, the Minister was intent on driving through a statute which he knows is defective and which is already the subject of ridicule. The Taoiseach's Ministers, starting with Deputy Noel Dempsey on Saturday, within 15 hours of the legislation being signed by the President, declared it to be inadequate. We want to know what will be the terms of this prospective all-party inquiry and whether the expert group will report to it rather than to the Taoiseach.

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